Conference Chair

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Reeta Chakrabarti

Reeta Chakrabarti is a BBC News presenter and correspondent. She presents the One, Six and Ten O'Clock News on BBC1 and also reports at home and abroad. She has previously held many prestigious reporting roles within the BBC and spent many years reporting politics from Westminster.

Reeta started out as a producer on BBC Radio 4, working on the Today programme, the World at One and PM before becoming a reporter on 5 Live Breakfast, in which she covered the French presidential elections, and the Dunblane killings. She later became a general news correspondent for television and radio, and then BBC Community Affairs Correspondent; covering the Stephen Lawrence inquest and inquiry, and home affairs including the Damilola Taylor murder trial.

During her time at Westminster from 1999, as Political Correspondent for the BBC, Reeta worked across a range of programmes in television and radio, reporting on political stories for BBC1, BBC2, BBC News Channel, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5 Live. During this time, Reeta covered three general elections and several changes of party leaders, with other notable stories including the cash for honours affair, MPs expenses, and fronting audience reaction pieces, known as the "Worm" after the election leaders' debates in 2010.

In 2011 Reeta became Education Correspondent, covering changes to university tuition fees, growth in academies and changes to the curriculum amongst many changes as well as reporting on education abroad. Reeta has reported on wider stories affecting society both at home and abroad, including looking at the issues of abortion in Chile and in Poland, the rise of female executives in India, the trafficking of young women from Albania, and the migrant crisis in Europe.

In addition, on the social affairs side, Reeta has reported on stories relating to adoption, poverty, and social mobility in the UK. Abroad she has looked at the success of women bankers in India, and why the pace of life in Denmark is healthier than in the UK. She has also presented on the BBC News Channel, BBC World, and Radio 4's The World Tonight.

Reeta is a fan of the poet John Keats and used this as her specialist subject on Celebrity Mastermind! She also took part in a celebrity episode of Only Connect for Comic Relief.

Reeta was born in Ealing, London and raised in Birmingham but spent time in India as a teenager. She has a degree in English and French from Exeter College, Oxford, and spent a year in France as a student.

She is married with three children, and lives in North London.